445.] These frank savages, speaking thus in behalf of their far northern brethren, uttered what was in the minds of most of the Indians who attended the councils held by the United States Commissioners.  They came to see what they could get, by begging, or by promising what they had neither the will nor the power to perform.  Many of them, as in the case of the Chippewas, were from lands so remote that they felt no anxiety about white encroachments, and were lured into hostile encounter with the Americans chiefly by their own overmastering love of plunder and bloodshed.

Nevertheless, there were a few chiefs and men of note in the tribes who sincerely wished peace.  One of these was Cornplanter, the Iroquois.  The power of the Six Nations had steadily dwindled; moreover, they did not, like the more western tribes, lie directly athwart the path which the white advance was at the moment taking.  Thus they were not drawn into open warfare, but their continual uneasiness, and the influence they still possessed with the other Indians, made it an object to keep on friendly terms with them.  Cornplanter, a valiant and able warrior, who had both taken and given hard blows in warring against the Americans, was among the chiefs and ambassadors who visited Fort Pitt during the troubled lull in frontier war which succeeded the news of the peace of 1783.  His speeches showed, as his deeds had already shown, in a high degree, that loftiness of courage, and stern, uncomplaining acceptance of the decrees of a hostile fate, which so often ennobled the otherwise gloomy and repellent traits of the Indian character.  He raised no plaint over what had befallen his race; “the Great Spirit above directs us so that whatever hath been said or done must be good and right,” he said in a spirit of strange fatalism well known to certain creeds, both Christian and heathen.  He was careful to dwell on the fact that in addressing the representatives of “the Great Council who watch the Thirteen Fires and keep them bright,” he was anxious only to ward off woe from the women and little ones of his people and was defiantly indifferent to what might personally be before him.  “As for me my life is short, ’t is already sold to the Great King over the water,” he said.  But it soon appeared that the British agents had deceived him, telling him that the peace was a mere temporary truce, and keeping concealed the fact that under the treaty the British had ceded to the Americans all rights over the Iroquois and western Indians, and over their land.  Great was his indignation when the actual text of the treaty was read him, and he discovered the double-dealing of his far-off royal paymaster.  In commenting on it he showed that, like the rest of his race, he had been much impressed by the striking uniforms of the British officers.  He evidently took it for granted that the head of these officers must own a yet more striking uniform; and treachery seemed doubly odious in one who possessed so much.